According to the Times Union story, Robert Carreau, Executive Director, wants the community to come up with a project that would have “significant, transformative change” for Schenectady.

The Schenectady Foundation will give out another $1 million later this year in smaller grants, scholarships, and awards to non-profits. Criteria for applying for the $1 million community project grant will be released in the next few weeks. A decision on the project will be made within the next year.

In case you’re wondering - no, The Schenectady Foundation is not saying that the $1 million alone is enough to transform Schenectady. It’s the foundation’s contribution to what it envisions will be a larger project, involving multiple agencies and funding from other sources.

The larger goal is to accomplish something that will “seek to change the lives of struggling families.” Seems like $1 million is a good place to start.

Visit here for more information on how to help The Schenectady Foundation.

21 Responses

How is it that any post here gets the instant tax comment?
I think that is great news for the city and rather than bickering all day long everyone now has a chance to propose a real game changer. My guess is that 80% of the submissions to the Foundation will be about lowering property taxes…..*sigh*.

Tom – I agree. I would expect that proposals to use the money to somehow lower taxes wouldn’t be approved. But it’s still too bad that with all the good that could be done, some people can’t see past that one issue.

In terms of taxes, a million dollars is a drop in the bucket. I think that this is more about the large number of unemployed, underemployed, kids with single parents, drugs, alcohol, etc. Too many kids who cannot learn and get NO help at home. Too much crime. And so on. I also think that a million is really not much in terms of creating better paying jobs. Lifting people out of poverty is hard – 50 years of great society programs has been unable to do it. SO I hope that whoever submits an idea is being creative and remembers that it all starts at home.

But this foundation has been giving money out for a while and nothing is better.

Reference is made to all this struggling families stuff and kids education. Families are struggling because of the high taxes, why doesn’t anyone realize that? Their home values are dropping and the mayor wouldn’t do squat about it.

Other families struggle because they have low wage jobs. Why do they have low wage jobs? Lack of education despite Schenectady schools having more offerings than any district around. Why is it that kids turned out better educated before there were all these charitable programs, before Head Start and before pre-K programs? 50 years ago we learned how to tie our shows in Kdg and graduated on time with no social promotion. We now have a couple generations now of kids who went to Head Start who were given calculators but can’t get the right math answer. A couple generations of these pre-K “education” programs and the kids are failing miserably.

Lack of parenting skills too, but does anyone bother to stand up and hold parents responsible, make them do their job? Parents don’t have to make their kids breakfast, they don’t have to pack them a lunch. Parents are not charged with any misdeeds if they fail to have their kids wear a raincoat and rubbers (the long-ago term) on a rainy day, Parents no longer have to make choices of buying video games for their kids or buying clothes for the kids, just give the kids clothes and let the parents spend money on non-essentials as wildly as the city spenda money on downtown and other non-essentials. Parents don’t have to take their kids for medical and dental care anymore, it’s all done in the schools. Schools are no longer a place for reading, writing and arithmetic, but rather a place for kids to have breakfasst and lunch, perhaps even supper, a medical provider, a sex educator (parents values don’t count), a place to learn to sing, dance, and sports because we’re telling the kids “you are going to grow up and be in show biz or play in the NBA and make millions.” And working parents of today have so many time saving modern conveniences compared to the lack of conviences of counterpart working parents of 50 years ago, but the kids are failing worse.

Start holding parents responsible for their kids or charge them with neglect. These days we do not treat neglectful parents as neglectful; heck, it’s one thing when a teacher calls parents and says he/she needs to have a meeting about the child and then the parents say “I can’t get time off from work,” but even parents who don’t work won’t go for such meetings, but again, we don’t charge the parent(s) with neglect when they do that.

Yes, we can use some more jobs in the city but we also cannot have government hotel employees, government theater employees, government pastry store employees, government restaurant employees, government burrito bar employees, etc, meaning we homeowners are footing the bill for everything, specifically downtown, and the taxpaying businesses are closing. Most of downtown has been given permanent exemption from property taxes. More and more are putting their homes up for sale, while more and more end up just walking away from their homes because their homes won’t sell. Now we taxpayers are in the realtor business as well as being landlords.

In summary, as long as the city spends wildly, the good honest hard-working people are going to leave the city, leaving behind people who more often than not are struggling because they lack a work ethic.

Anyone have an idea why so many of us put up our homes for sale asking prices that are 30 and 40% lower than the city assesses our houses for and after 10 months, a year, a year and half, our homes won’t sell?

I think that if we were to bring in a new industry it would go a long way toward alleviating the problems the city faces. Once upon a time GE and ALCO provided quality jobs which allowed a middle class to grow and thrive throughout the region. People had hope and opportunity. Efforts should be made to scour the planet for an industry to relocate. Look what Global Foundries is doing for Malta and Saratoga County. Look what the College of Nanoscale is doing for Albany and the region. Get an industry and struggling housholds will thrive. And you wont hear anymore griping about taxes.

What is Global doing up there? They got a billion dollars of taxpayer money the first time around from the state. The state is in fiscal straights but is giving them more money for the next factory.

Just last month there was a story of Global getting a sales tax break worth $387 million.

The place right now is currently assessed for $26.8 million dollars and they don’t pay a penny in property or school taxes.

Global is not in any way doing anything to keep the property taxes in check. Taxes in the communities in Saratoga is no where near what they are in Schenectady, but Global has wealth, they can afford to pay the taxes.

Proctors in Schenctady got tens of millions in taxpayer dollars, it’s property is assessed for even more than Global is, Proctors is assessed for $26.9 million and it doesn’t pay a penny in property or school taxes. We get absolutely no return on the “investment” of our tax dollars.

But at least exempting a $26 million property in Malta is attracting people to buy houses there. In Schenectady we’ve got a $26 million dollar Proctors (in conjunction with a grossly overpaid CEO—our governor was supposed to be looking into the exhorbitant salaries of heads of NFP’s) and no one wants to buy here, billionaires owning property owning property downtown that we pay their taxes in addition to our own, and no one wants to buy here, our values are going down once again this year but we can’t get our assessments reduced.

I don’t think that there are many people in the city with a work ethic to work at a good manufacturing place, I think if GE suddenly added 10,000 jobs, many Schenectadians who would take the jobs would be terminated within six months.

Maybe this money from the Schenectady foundation could pick up on paying for things that the democrats on the council are arguing about, after they had another “secret” council meeting by excluding one council member, it was a meeting about the CDBG spending.

Etc, I doubt it. Families do not want to live in high rise condos, they want homes with affordable taxes and a yard for their children to play. Schenectady has never been, is not now, and will never be some cosmopolitan city. People want swing sets and swimming pools in their private back yards, and green space.

And there is not a private developer willing to do anything in this city, sadly. The only ones that develope are the multimillionaires who get handouts from the taxpayers and then get permanent 100% tax exemptions from the city leaders.

And now a bridge in the city has closed. Why do we give our tax dollars to build buildings for Galesi, a billionaire, and then Galesi will NEVER pay taxes to the city, and then we have to suffer. The city gives our tax dollars to Galesis and has no money to fix a bridge so now a bridge has been closed which has the potential to jeopardize the lives of taxpayers because emergency vehicles will have to go way far out of their way.

First: Get rid of the blight. Graffiti vandalism/trespassing on private/gov’t/commercial property has not been reined in by our police and timid politicians. Albany has a handle on it, why not Sch’dy? Also, get the Onrust ship back in the Mohawk @ Riverside Park. The mayor and Peggy King – pres. of city council nixed this free grant…the boat was made upstream from the Stockade yet we the people can’t enjoy something homemade…the cry was: it’ll “mar our view”…well, go down to Riverside Park @ the end of N. Ferry @ the Promenade and look @ the cannon: graffiti/dark symbolism, lampposts same…now, that’s marring my view! Offer families who can afford to stay 5 years or more in a newly rehabbed or new green/sustainable house. There are many of those that are needed. Attack poverty: teach parents to be responsible for their OWN children. Mine were. Roll back property taxes in the city by 2.5% for 4 years=10% savings on overstretched/responsible property owner should be all encompassing. Give incentives for those who take care of their homes/neighborhoods. Allow school age children to learn civics. Have them appreciate their neighborhoods, etc. so when they’re older they may stay here and continue to take care of them. I have a laundry list too large for this space. But do something!
GPlanteStockade12305

This type of housing brings in new Schenecatdy residents who will pay property and sales taxes in Schenectady.

Result: Schenectady then becomes a decent place to live, attracting more people who will buy up the vacant houses and repair/live in them. People with “swing sets and swimming pools in their private back yards.”

Problem: Schenectady, like every other city around here, is run by Democrats. Democrats who don’t want housing like the condominiums in my link because that type of housing will bring in new residents and a lot of those new people will invariably be Republican. Democrats don’t want that – no way – no how.

Reality: Schenectady, like every other city around here run by Democrats will never improve. Never!

You show a condo in Milwaukee. Give it up. You’re comparing apples and pork chops. (you’re not even comparing a fruit to a fruit)

Schenectady is a small city with a population of just 66,000, Milwaukee is a huge metropolitan area with a population of almost 600,000, close to 10 times the population of Schenectady. In fact the whole Schenectady county (Schenectady city AND towns/villages of Nisky, Rotterdam, Glenville, Scotia, Duanesburg, Princetown, Delanson, Pattersonville) doesn’t have a population anywhere near Milwaukee city alone!

In fact, the COMBINED populations of the COUNTIES of Schenectady, Albany, and Renssealer, which make up a “metropolitical Statistical Area” has a total population only 30,000 more than the CITY of Milwaukee ALONE!

A condo with only 1,000 sq feet and no land, ONLY one bedroom, ONLY one bathroom for close to whopping $200,000! IF such condos were in Schenectady and resulted in a 25% tax reduction, the taxes would still be $6,000 per year For that price and even less CURRENT taxes, you can buy a 4 bedroom house, 1.5 or 2 baths’s, 1,500+ square feet, tons of attic storage space, a basement family room, children’s play room, workshop, extra storage, and upwards of 8,000 sq feet of land for a front yard, for flowers, landscaping, at least 4 off street parking spaces, a back yard for a pool, swingsets, sandbox, trampoline, a deck or patio, outdoor furniture, outdoor entertaining, grilling, outdoor fireplace, flower garden, vegetable garden, gazebo. Oh yes, and no monthly condo fees either.

And what developers will come in and build with their own private money? Whty is stopping them from coming in here? Why haven’t they been flocking to the city to build those condos. If a developer came in and said to the city “we will build entirely with our own money and not expect tax exemptions,” do you think the city is going to say “no” to them? So where are these developers? Duh!

Look at the untold wealth of the lone downtown developer Galesi! He won’t even spend much of his own money, and then he only does stuff because he is exempt from paying proeprty & school taxes, not too mention he is exempt from paying sales taxes too!

T2H – You sound like a lifetime Schenectady resident who’s never left Schenectady. Whether the mid-rise condo is in Milwaukee or Moscow is irrelevant. Schenectady has the capacity for mid-rise condominiums. But Schenectady (like Albany, Troy, Cohoes, and Watervliet) is run by elected Democrats whose goal is to run the city into the ground making it unattractive to anyone other than the welfare class.

If the elected Democrats who run Schenectady wanted mid-rise condominiums, they would be breaking ground right now.

I have seen it for myself with my own two eyes in many, many cities across the United States.

The Bottom Line: Elected Democrats in Schenectady completely change their approach to how they want to run their city, allowing mid-rise condominiums to be built, or nothing is ever going to change. In fact, Schenectady is only going to get worse.

ETC sounds like the typical Schenectady Syndrome resident. Our taxes are too damn high from too many straight years of Democratic “leadership”. Resale values have tanked. Tax exemptions up and down State St. Until the high taxes and poor schools are fixed no amount of surplus housing will whelp. 700+ tax foreclosures should wake you up. There are other cities like Schenectady and they went bankrupt. I hear Karen Johnson has a new plan for her 10th term.

I see no way around it since the masses keep electing people that spend money that isn’t there. Those same masses distracted by Facebook and TMZ, not realizing that the spending is unsustainable and is showing no signs of turning around.

No high rise or “intermodal transportation” system is going to make up for the lack of parenting, and raising families completely dependent on the entitlement system, while public sector unions get healthcare for life.

To me these are facts, not opinions. I see no way for this to turn around. There is no Global Foundaries coming to save Sch’dy. NYS doesn’t have another $1B to lure someone here.

Schenectady should have gone bankrupt 10 years ago. That is the only way to end these Democratic give away contracts to their union buddies. The problem started with horrible Karen Johnson who is still running 30 years later. Until the taxpayers throw the bums out nothing can start to improve.

Schenectady should be embarrassed about the condition of its roads. Not another dime should be spent on any public improvement until the roads are fixed. Driving through downtown Schenectady will rattle the fillings right out of your teeth. You want people to patronize the businesses in your city? Start by making those businesses accessible by decent roads.

etc – When I think high rise then a block like the one at Summit@Albany comes to mind. Those are typically generating more crime, which we surely do not need more of. That has nothing to do with the people who live there, but with the fact that stuffing many people into a small area generates social friction (for lack of a better term).
What you are looking for is already being built in Schenectady, such as at Union@Barrett. I don’t object to that, but these places are geared at young professionals who do not have family.
Anyone who lives here and can afford to buy a house to live in isn’t really the main concern. I think the issues are more with rentals that are not maintained and abandoned property. Schenectady now wants to spend more money on leveling ruins. I guess an empty overgrown lot is a bit better than an overgrown lot with some dilapidated structure on it, but I don’t think that ultimately this is the solution.

jt – I agree, but the roads are crap in the entire region. Three layers of asphalt straight on the clay dirt just doesn’t hold up to bulky SUVs and heavy trucks. What would help a lot is to coordinate street paving with maintenance work such as replacing iron water mains with plastic/copper as well as fixing sewers. Once that is done roads need some proper bedding of split and sand for drainage. Otherwise in a few years the roads are littered with cuts and patches.

In general I don’t think it is a Democrat or Republican thing. Schenectady used to be twice the size in population decades ago and it appears as that a lot of things were not right-sized to the new realities. I also think that the administration is about the most backwards and complicated to work with. Have you ever filed a building permit in Schenectady? The form for that is not available on the city’s web site, it cannot be submitted electronically, and you cannot just go to the office and drop it off, no, it needs to be during specific times of the day where the building inspectors are present. They have at least two admins working in the office there, I am sure they are as capable of checking if the form was filled out right and then drop it on the to do pile. The inspectors can then work on those when time allows and once approved tell the requester to get the permit. I went through this process once and when I went back to city hall to report work completion they told me they already checked it two months ago. Not sure what they checked, but I didn’t even start the work two months earlier. And good luck finding the local building codes or anything else that one might need or want to know. The process cost me more than the actual fee!
There are many more examples I could bring from paving schedule over financial information to figuring out when council members have their office hours.
Just be careful what you wish for, maybe Schenectady applies for one of the casino licenses. Can’t wait what screaming that would produce.

But it is a Democratic thing. The Democrats have bankrupted the City with 37 years of overspending and bonding. There are no Republicans on the City Council and only one on the County Legislature. When Proctor’s has more candidates than any third party you have major problems.

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